


The Tower And Ruins

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguity, Blood and Gore, Captivity, Dark, Loss of Sanity, M/M, Mark of Cain, Memory Loss, Season/Series 10, Tenderness, The Darkness - Freeform, Tragedy, consensual intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4421660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hears it while he's far off at the coast, staring into deep dark sea. He is alone. It has been a long time. He comes here when he's sad, when he wants peace. When he wants punishment. When he can't stand the faces of people, the cold of the mountains, the dead of the sands. He listens to the cries of the birds, and stares at the point where the sky meets the sea, where one becomes the other. How telling, he thinks, mockingly and tired, that this is what he yearns. At the end of everything. How cruel, that this is what no story ever tells.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tower And Ruins

 

 

 

 

 

_they lament the sky_

 

 

 

 

 

He hears it while he's far off at the coast, staring into deep dark sea. He is alone. It has been a long time. He comes here when he's sad, when he wants peace. When he wants punishment. When he can't stand the faces of people, the cold of the mountains, the dead of the sands. He listens to the cries of the birds, and stares at the point where the sky meets the sea, where one becomes the other. How telling, he thinks, mockingly and tired, that this is what he yearns. At the end of everything. How cruel, that this is what no story ever tells. He hears it while he's staring at the depth of the ocean, where no light ever reaches the ground. It goes through him and his stillness cracks, his heart beats –

_H-help me.... Help me...._

He breathes in, shuddering, salt and air. His hands clench, and he can't look at the ocean anymore. Guilt. One second, and he flies.

>

The entrance is covered in dirt and dead leaves, the key long since destroyed. He doesn't need it. He is the only one who knows, the only one to enter. The door still does not creak when he opens it, but he has found he wishes it did. The silence beyond is worse than a grave, worse than stones under the sea. Because there is no life, no mercy of oblivion either. But he strides in without pause, urgent, careful to close the door behind himself. This is not a prison for him. Not a cathedral. He has not prayed in decades, a grim and painful satisfaction. He goes down the stairs, through the wide room with the files and books. There is not a trace of dust, he doesn't know why, but he does not care to know. All this does not matter anymore.

He walks up to the hidden door, the traps and heavy warding that electrifies the air. He opens the iron door to the room beyond – coated in salt, covered in Enochian, in witch's spells, in condemnation. It's illuminated faintly by black candles and Holy Fire in all corners. The flames flicker over the glowing blue and red on the walls, the devil's trap in the center. Over the chains that bind the creature lying in the middle of the floor. The body is thin, the breath too fast. The clothes are ripped and covered in old blood. The feet are bare, the face pale and shadowed. The hands are shaking, fingers half curled into claws.

Dean lifts his head, his smile weak and soft, “H-heya, Cas.”

>

“So, the Darkness, huh?”

Sam is standing at the library table, hands on his hips, frowning at his brother where he's sitting slumped over in his chair, defeated but quiet, dark smudges under his eyes. “That's what Death told me.” Dean says it so calmly, like he's already accepted it. Like he's known, for a while. Sam's voice is still calm too, but Castiel can tell it's a forced calm. Sam is angry. Where Dean looks small and vulnerable, his shoulders down and hands curled in his lap, Sam's back is ramrod straight, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “No,” he's saying, “that is not gonna happen, Dean. There is a way around this, we will find it.” Castiel is standing between the two, uncertain whether to go over and stand at Sam's side, or sit down and take Dean by the shoulders. Hold him up, make him look at Castiel and promise that he's not going to leave them behind.

Dean doesn't object to his brother's words, but he's still not looking at them either. He's so still, so quiet. Something seizes painfully in Castiel's chest. “I – I will help you, of course.” He doesn't specify which one of them he means, isn't even sure he knows himself. Sam shoots him a brief glance and nods mechanically, then turns on his heels and disappears down the hallway, shoulders up at his ears. Dean sighs when a door slams closed a few seconds later, he tells the table “He's not going to accept this for a while. It's not like I'm a fan of it either. But you know how this ends, right?” Castiel swallows. He doesn't answer, which must be answer enough.

>

He walks over and into the devil's trap, then kneels down and opens the cuffs around Dean's wrists and ankles. The skin underneath is rubbed raw and red. Dean breathes a bit more calmly now, his sides shuddering occasionally with pain or cold. “You smell – – – like water,” he rasps, his voice raw and fragile. Soft, like a question, curious. “I do,” he says, and he turns Dean around, slips an arm under his knees and picks him up. Carries him out of the room slowly. Dean doesn't protest, just shifts in his arms and leans his head against his chest with a content sigh, closes his eyes.

He carries Dean into the library and over to where the couch and the TV set have been crammed into a corner. He lays Dean out on the couch, then sits down so that Dean can rest his head on his thigh. Dean sighs again, rubs his cheek against the fabric. “I think I'm thirsty. Can I – can I have some water?” He switches on the TV and gives Dean the remote control, “I'll be right back.” He goes to the kitchen and fills a glass with water. It's still running. Another thing he never checks. It's not like Dean really needs it anymore – he just thinks he does. Even the refrigerator is still humming. There must still be food inside, rotted and fallen apart. He never cleared it out. No one did. It seemed so pointless, and too final all at once.

When he comes back, Dean has set the TV on some kind of cop show, the light of the screen reflected back in his eyes. They have 500 hours of TV recorded on the player, all of it decades old. They've been through all of it before. Dean doesn't seem to mind. He lifts Dean's head onto his thigh again, holds the water out to him. Dean takes it, the glass shaking in time with his hands. He spills very little of it, drinks barely even half. They watch for a while, and after the episode is over it doesn't cut to the next but continues with infomercials. They must have recorded them on accident. He looks down, expecting Dean to skip ahead, but Dean makes no move to do so. He's still staring at the screen with the same removed expression. Like he can't distinguish what's on it at all.

His hands still where he'd been running them softly through Dean's hair. He feels like there's a knife lodged in his throat. He coughs, breathes, “Dean, why don't – why don't we watch a movie instead?” Dean turns his head a bit to look at him, the corners of his mouth tugged up in a smile, “Sure thing, Cas. Pick one.” Dean motions at the stack of DVDs left and right to the TV. The mark on his arm is red like a wound on his pale skin, edged deep and alive.

>

They get six weeks and thirty-six days. Dean is quiet, but he answers his phone every time Castiel calls. In the dead of the night, in the secret hours of the morning. Castiel never asks if Dean even sleeps anymore. They don't really talk about anything, but there is a fragile honesty to all they say. In retrospect, Castiel suspects that it were these conversations that kept him sane during their last few weeks. Sam is quiet as well, but quiet in his fury. He's hunting for books that will not help them, that are forbidden, and he disappears for days. He doesn't talk to Castiel anymore, not really, not after he begins to suspect that there is a limit to how far Castiel is willing to go.

Then, Dean calls him at five in the morning on a sky blue winter's day. Castiel isn't far from the bunker, having been aimlessly driving around for the past three days. He's been spending the last few weeks commuting between the bunker and the open road, unable to stay away from Dean for long, and yet feeling burned out from the silent despair. He doesn't have his wings back yet, heaven still under Metatron's spell. He arrives an hour later, finding Dean in his room. Dean is sitting on his bed with his back to the door. He lifts his head when Cas enters, offers him a shaky smile. His eyes are red but dry. The chains from the dungeon are lying on the floor to his feet.

“Heya, Cas.”

>

He picks out the first Lord of the Rings movie. Dean was so excited the first time they watched it, right here on this couch. Dean had been exhausted, scratches up and down his arms and his eyes glazed and fever-bright, but he'd practically been bouncing in his seat, “Wait until we get to the Nazgûl, Cas!” He hadn't had the heart to tell Dean that, technically, he already knew the movie from Metatron's pop-culture instant download into his brain. But it was entirely different watching it with Dean anyway. Dean, who was looking at him to gauge his reactions, who was glowing with almost child-like joy.

He's carding his fingers through Dean's hair again, occasionally rubbing Dean's shoulders when he's shivering. Dean is not cold, his skin warm and dry, but not so hot yet that it's dangerous. It's still early. They normally get a day and a half, sometimes two. Dean leans into the movement of his hands, “I'm hungry. Can I have something to eat?” He moves his hands back to Dean's head, “I'll make you something in a minute, Dean.” Dean turns back to the movie. He knows that Dean is going to forget, and then ask again in a few hours. And forget again. His hunger is not actually for food, and his body doesn't need it. When the time comes, it's even going to reject the water that he drank.

On the screen, Samwise Gamgee is telling his friend never to go anywhere he can not follow him. Dean's voice sounds brittle when he asks, “Cas? Is he going to go somewhere alone? What happens in the end?” He draws in a breath that gets stuck in his throat, and he has to force his fingers to keep going, to stay tender against Dean's skin when all he wants is to hit something. To grind his knuckles against the earth and scream. Dean has seen this movie more than twenty times, was quoting lines at him. Now, Dean sounds curious and worried. “I don't know, Dean” and he's clenching his jaw, his voice is flat and the words are too heavy, “I don't know.”

>

“He is never going to stop searching for you.”

Dean has stood up and is standing in front of Castiel now, his smile faint and tired. His shoulders are so slumped it looks like someone dropped a weight on his back and beat it into his bones until it stuck. But he's not swaying, he looks determined. At peace, even though a part of Castiel screams that he shouldn't be, that he should rage against this because he does not deserve it. “For a while, yeah,” Dean answers, the sadness and regret loud and clear where his voice isn't. “But eventually, he will. He'll get out, go his own way.”

“What if,” Castiel objects, hesitatingly, “what if he finds a way to – ” But Dean is shaking his head, “There is no way. Not around this.” He doesn't look at his arm though but at his room, eyes trailing over his few belongings like already he can not touch them anymore. “Cas, I don't know where I was last night. I don't know what I did.” There's naked fear in his eyes when his gaze briefly flickers back to Castiel's. He goes over to his bed, hesitates for a moment with a last look at the nightstand, then picks up the chains and walks back over to Castiel. “Death is going to show him tonight. What would happen if the – if it ever got free. He's going to understand. In the end.”

Dean swallows, looks at the ground, then stops fiddling with the chains and holds them out to him.

Castiel feels frozen on the spot, stares into Dean's eyes like if he just doesn't move, doesn't look at what's in Dean's hands, none of this will become real, and time will just stop right here and never go on. He opens his mouth, but what comes out is a soft sound he can not identify. His eyes feels hot and something awful is climbing up his throat. Dean sighs, and the chains clink against the floor, “Cas, I'm sorry.” His voice sounds like Castiel feels, like someone's choking him. “I never meant to put this on you. But you know what will happen. You know.”

Someone always has to have the mark of Cain, is what he doesn't say. And Castiel wants to scream that he does not know, that he does not _care_. For a wild moment, just wants to yank the chains out of Dean's hand and take him far away from here. An angry noise fights its way out of his throat and he starts forward, grips the front of Dean's shirt and twists his fingers into the fabric. Dean doesn't even flinch. Just looks sadly back at Castiel, patient. His bright green eyes look so old and knowing in this moment, Castiel wants to drop to his knees and pray at him for salvation.

Dean swallows, his mouth twisting like he's in pain. He leans his forehead against Castiel's and closes his eyes. His fingers find Castiel's where they're still holding onto his shirt, and squeeze briefly. Dean's fingers are warm, but they're shaking. Castiel's breath hitches, and Dean exhales softly against his skin. “Cas, it's time.”

>

Dean lays a sealed envelope on his bed and switches the lights off in his room, leaves the door wide open. Castiel is holding the chains. Dean stops in the doorway, looks at Castiel's hands, “You're going to have to hide me for a while. Somewhere. The dungeon would be the safest place, but we can't come back here until – ” He swallows, clenches and unclenches his hands. Until it's empty. Until no one knows about him, and this place anymore. “Just put me in the back, chain me up and knock me out for a while. Don't tell me where we go. You should be safe. Just don't stop.”

They leave the bunker, and Dean doesn't look back once. He doesn't say anything about the Impala when he gets into the backseat of the Continental and Castiel snaps the cuffs closed over his wrists and ankles. Just hisses when the iron touches his skin, and the thing that's trying to break free inside of him recoils from the contact. Castiel touches his fingers to Dean's cheek and Dean shudders, and then his eyes roll back in his head and he's under.

Castiel drives 1176 miles to the Appalachian Mountains. Dean doesn't wake up the whole time, the chains clinking softly along with the vibrations of the car. Castiel stares at the road, at the sky, at the headlights of the other cars. He doesn't stop once. He thinks of nothing, but every few hours his hands shake around the steering wheel and he has to blink to clear his vision. He finds himself wishing that someone would stop them, that the road would just end. That Dean would wake up and smile at him again, unhindered.

He hides Dean in a cave high up in the mountains, far away from any hiking trails. He paints a devil's trap on the floor, old Enochian, secures the chains deep into the rock. He wards the cave from inside and out, so that no animal or human can even conceive of it and will make a long way around it in any case. He spreads out a scratchy old blanket from his trunk in the middle of the trap and lays Dean down on top of it. Dean doesn't wake up. He looks exhausted, and yet his expression is oddly peaceful. It's not going stay that way.

Castiel leaves the cave, and he drives, and he keeps driving. Later, he will have no memory of the next few days. In the weeks that follow, he keeps catching himself staring into the middle distance, straining to hear Dean's voice in his head. Praying. Then he would know, then he could go to him. But it never happens. To fill the silence, he talks to people on the road, can even help a few. He never quite manages to smile. Some of them seem to be able to tell, and they give him things, flower seeds, some pie, a postcard. He keeps some of them, gives the food away to strangers. They tell him he is kind. He only shakes his head. At night, when the stars shine above some empty highway, he looks up and he curses every single one of them.

Dean doesn't wake up again for over fifty years.

>

They're halfway through The Two Towers, and he is holding Dean's right hand in his, massaging his palm and his fingers, because the shaking has gotten worse. Dean doesn't seem to notice that, content to watch the images flicker over the screen. He is focused on Dean's hands, the skin dry and scratched, and somehow still soft. His other hand is resting on Dean's hip, absently rubbing circles into the bone. When he becomes aware of what he's doing, he stops and just rests his palm there. Dean doesn't seem to mind, always leaning into his touch and seeming to be calmed by it. But Dean never reacts anymore if his touches stray further than Dean's back and sides. And so it just feels wrong.

He is so preoccupied with the feeling of Dean's skin against his, he doesn't notice how Dean hasn't been watching the screen for a while. He is jolted out of his reverie by Dean asking, in a voice laced with confusion, “You know, was there – was there someone else?” Dean is staring past the screen and at the library tables, looking them over like he's seeing something more than smooth wood and empty surfaces. His fingers freeze around Dean's, gripping them tight, keeping them still even though it won't stop anything.

He turns Dean gently by the shoulders, and Dean looks up at him, trusting and open. He has to clear his throat twice before he can inquire, “Dean, do you. Do you know who I am?” His heart beats while he waits, a sinking feeling like vertigo in his middle that he should not be able to feel. Dean frowns up at him, “Of course I know who you are. You're Cas.” He exhales, starts to rub his thumb over Dean's knuckles again. Dean turns back to the screen, unconcerned, “That's one strange name though. Is it short for something else?”

>

Castiel returns to the cave after five weeks, despite not having heard Dean pray. It's early in the morning, and fog is hanging heavy between dark green trees. He just couldn't stay away any longer. Castiel has not heard Dean pray, but he has heard the thing, the dark, wake up and start raving five days after he left Dean in the cave. It's been howling ever since, a sound no one can hear but him. It has kept him teetering on the edge of panic and despair, the realization that if he was killed, no one would ever know how to find Dean. After a while, no one would even remember him anymore. No one would come for him. The thought is almost more terror than he can bear.

He enters the cave, and the screaming of the thing is like a wall of fire. It does not deter him. Later, he will find himself wishing it had, however guilty it makes him feel. The cave is illuminated only by the holy fire he placed into a cavern on the right. The walls of the cave already look smoother, stained like black glass and filled with more shadows than they have a right to be. When his eyes fall upon the creature, all his movements grind to an abrupt halt. Nausea climbs up his throat, but he can not look away.

The creature is lying on its stomach in the middle of the trap, the chains dragging against the stone. Black eyes full of hatred stare at him, there's bloody foam around the mouth, lips pulled back from grinding teeth. Dean's body looks stretched thin, the vertebrae on his back too bulky. Like something is trying to break out, held back only by the mark, the lock upon an ancient abyss. There's dried blood all down Dean's shirtfront, and his shoes are gone. His left arm has scratches all around the cuff circling his wrist, the fingers clawing spasmodically at the ground. His right arm is in ribbons, skin and tendons torn away. There's the shine of bone through the flesh, but around the Mark the skin is unbroken. Nothing could ever get through there. Nothing can ever take it away.

The creature hisses at him, fury and pain, strains against its bounds. Its breathing is ragged and wet and far too loud. There are tear stains all down Dean's cheeks. Castiel recoils and turns on his heels and flees from the cave. He drives until he gets to the sea, crashes to his knees at the shore and sobs, dryly, buries his fingers in the sand and grips tight. He holds up his hands, and the sand trickles through. No matter how hard his grip, he can barely hold on to any of it. With a snarl, he throws the sand into the water, and then picks up a stone and throws it too, as hard as he can, and another one, and another. He walks into the waves, loses his footing, crashes to his knees again with water washing softly over his thighs. He laments at the sky and beats at the waves, and is met with nothing but the circling flow of the sea.

>

It takes a long moment before he can answer, and when he does there is tremble in his voice. “It is,” he stares at the screen, forces out the words, “It's a. Nickname. You gave it to me.” Dean is silent for a moment, and he continues to stroke his fingers over Dean's hand, through his hair. Finally, Dean breathes out a soft “Oh”, his voice full of quiet wonder. But he doesn't say or ask anything else. The movie is at the final battle scenes when Dean's sides begin to shudder in closer intervals, his breath becoming heavy and strained. “Cas _– hhhhkkkk_. Cas, I don't feel so good.” Dean coughs, painfully, and water bubbles up his throat and stains the fabric of the couch.

He grips Dean's hand tighter, and for a moment, wants nothing but to draw Dean to himself and close his eyes and forget about all and everything. “It's okay, Dean. It's okay.” He shifts Dean into his lap, puts an arm under his knees and lifts him, stands up with him in his arms. Dean is pawing weakly at the front of his shirt, staring up at him with his eyes shining and wet, “Please don't bring me back there... _hhhkkkk_ , please, _hhhhhkkk_ don't. I don't want to.” He starts walking, Dean's pleas becoming less and less comprehensible, choked by his wet breathing. He could shift Dean in his arms and touch his head and knock him out. But he doesn't know if that would be mercy for Dean or for himself. So he doesn't.

By the time he lays Dean down in the middle of the devil's trap, Dean is trembling all over, his back shuddering and arching outside of his control. He snaps the cuffs closed over Dean's wrists, “No, don't,” over his ankles, “ _hhhkkk_ , no, please!” He doesn't look at Dean, turns his back, doesn't flinch when the coughing and the scratching starts up behind him. “Hha, hha, d-don't leave me.” He closes the door behind himself, and the whole bunker seems to shudder around it, magic and warding and darkness snapping back into place. He leans his back against the hidden door and hangs his head, his eyes shut tight, his teeth grinding against nothing.

>

Castiel is somewhere in the desert, watching people harvest salt out of lakes that reflect the sky in perfect clarity, when he finally hears Dean pray. It has been five decades, and he has his grace and wings back, but for the moment he is utterly frozen and he can not fly. The sky doesn't change, the people keep on with their work and do not even notice him. For him, the world stops for a second and goes entirely still.

_Cas... Cas, you there? I don't know where I am... Cas, I need y–_

Three seconds, and then he tears through the sky and stands at the cave entrance. It's early morning, and there are birds chirping and the air smells overwhelmingly of pine. Inside, the cave is dark and the walls are black and smooth, pushed further back, sleek like molten plastic. The Holy Fire whispers quietly in the breeze coming through the entrance. Dean is lying curled up on his side at the edge of the trap, but he lifts his head when Castiel enters. His arms are scratched but whole again, and his cheeks are pale and too thin, but he smiles, his eyes shining. “Heya, Cas. Man, that was fast. You back on angel express?” Dean chuckles, a bit breathless but amused and relieved. His soul is so bright. Castiel is frozen on the spot, unable to do anything but stare. His heart beats.

Dean frowns at him, shifts in place with the chains dragging over the stone, “Hey, Cas, you okay?” It jolts Castiel back into action, he starts forward and crouches down next to Dean, uncuffs him hurriedly and with trembling fingers. Dean watches him, silent, and then catches Castiel's hand when he makes to withdraw, softly rubs his thumb over Castiel's knuckles. “Hey, Cas, hey. Lookit me, it's okay. It's okay, Cas.” It's then that he understands he's crying, and he closes his eyes and turns his face away, confused and ashamed. His skin is too hot and his mind is all in chaos. He sobs and he clings to Dean's hand.

When the storm in his head finally quietens, and his vision clears, he looks down at Dean to find that he is still smiling, soft and sad, though there is an edge of pain in his eyes. Dean shifts on the floor, clears his throat, “This floor sucks and I'm thirsty as hell. Can we – ?” He doesn't finish the question, looks up and searches Castiel's eyes. Castiel looks away and nods, “We can return to the bunker.” He doesn't say that the bunker has been empty for a long time, and that no one but them knows about it anymore. He doesn't say what that means. By the way Dean's breath hitches for a moment, it's clear that there's no need.

Dean swallows audibly, “Okay then. Gonna need your help to stand, I think.” Castiel pulls him up by the armpits, then lays one of Dean's arms around his shoulder and puts his other arm around Dean's waist. “Hey, before we go,” Dean's voice is near his ear, his warm breath hitting the side of Castiel's face, “could we, uh. Could we stand outside for a minute?” They limp to the cave entrance, Castiel taking most of Dean's weight. Dean has to close his eyes, and then blink furiously for a few minutes, his vision no longer used to so much light. Then he just stands there, looks around with so much wonder like he's seeing everything for the first time. He tips his head back and sighs when the sunlight hits his skin.

Dean's eyes are still wet when he opens them again, his voice meek and uncertain, “I don't know how long we have, Cas.” Castiel shifts in place and doesn't answer, the chains clinking against each other where he has them hanging over the bend of his left arm. Dean leans closer against his side, touches Castiel's arm with the tips of his fingers, “Let's go.” Castiel draws Dean closer, and then he flies, and then they're there. Dean doesn't ask about the key when Castiel opens the door, or about anything else. He sets Dean down at one of the library tables, at a loss, and Dean looks around, his voice strangely lighthearted when he says, “You know, there's a couch in one of the spare rooms. Wanna move it in here, watch some TV?”

They do. This first time, they get five entire days. They marathon movies, and Castiel gets Dean take-out a few times because he says he's hungry. Dean makes joyful noises around the food, though it seems to disappear inside of him and Castiel isn't sure he can even really taste it. But Dean looks happy, and he doesn't ask. At the evening of the fourth day, while they're watching some kind of western, Dean's hand suddenly sneaks into his. Castiel looks up in surprise, his heart beating, but Dean is not looking at him. He's still turned towards the screen, though his eyes do not move. His jaw is clenched, and then he's whispering, “Cas, I know I shouldn't say this. But I'm glad you're here. I'm glad it's you.”

I'm glad I'm not alone, is what he doesn't add and clearly feels ashamed about. But Castiel's heart is beating around the it's _you_ , and he feels helpless to do anything but hold Dean's hand in return and don't let go. Dean draws in a breath, exhales on a sigh, and then chuckles lowly. He doesn't withdraw his hand. Castiel continues to stare at him, not even trying to hide it. Dean hasn't slept the entire time, and he has stopped asking for water. All morning, he sat on the floor of the hallway with his back to the wall and watched Castiel put layer upon layer of warding and spells over the dungeon, paint every spot on the wall with sigils and spill holy oil in the corners. Dean didn't once ask a question, just watched with open curiosity while Castiel prepared his prison.

Over the next few hours, Dean looks increasingly tired. He slumps against Castiel's shoulder, and his eyelids flutter. His breathing grows ragged, like there's water in his lungs. Castiel is in the kitchen, running cold water over a washcloth because Dean said he felt like he was burning up. Then, there's the sound of something cluttering to the ground and a body falling down, followed by the sound of retching. He leaves the water running and hurries back, only to find Dean on his knees next to the couch, spitting out gray water and black tar, his back and sides shaking and shuddering violently. He's holding out a trembling hand towards Castiel, seemingly unable to uncurl his fingers, “Cas, _hhhh_ , Cas _help me_!”

>

Dean wakes up for the second time after only five years, then gets hauled back an hour earlier. He never asks how much time has passed. They know what Death said, though they never speak of it – the intervals between him waking will get longer, while the time he spends as himself grows shorter. And one day, he will not find his way back to the surface. He will be buried too deep and disappear. Dean laughs every time Castiel looks surprised and relieved when Dean still calls him by his name when he wakes, “Like I could ever forget you, Cas.”

Dean asks him about the people he's met, about the shower of comets Castiel observed ten months ago, and listens with rapt attention. They stop starting new shows after a while, when it becomes evident that Dean doesn't remember enough of the previous episodes to follow the plot. Instead, they watch the same things again and again, and Castiel finds that he draws peace from the familiar dialogues, can find refuge in this world where nothing ever dies and time is just a point of view.

It's the fifth or sixth time, and they have about half a day left. Dean has been very quiet, and he's switched off the TV and doesn't turn it back on. Instead, he lies his head down in Castiel's lap, something he has never done before. Hesitatingly, Castiel lays his hand on top of Dean's head, and then starts carding his fingers through Dean's hair. Dean sighs at the contact and his whole body relaxes at once. Castiel continues for a while, and Dean's eyes slip closed. Dean's hair is soft, and Castiel finds himself soothed by the warmth of his skin. Dean suddenly asks, “Cas, you know, right? Please tell me you know.” His voice sounds choked, like he's barely holding back tears.

Castiel stills his movements and looks down at Dean in shock and confusion. Dean still has his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw is trembling. “Dean,” he holds Dean by the shoulder, tries to gently turn him around, “Dean, what is it?” He swallows and moves up to sit, so close that Castiel can see his lips quivering, can feel Dean's breath on his face. Dean reaches out a hand, slowly, runs his thumb over Castiel's cheekbone. Castiel's heart beats and the world stops. “Cas, tell me you know.” Castiel stares into Dean's eyes, so full of their history, of longing, of regret. He falls forward and touches his lips to Dean's, softly. Dean gasps and moves his hands to hold onto Castiel's shoulders, his grip tightening when Castiel coaxes Dean's mouth open under his.

Castiel spreads two woolen blankets out on the floor in front of the couch, draws Dean down to him and then lays him back on them, pushes Dean into the soft fabric with his own weight. Dean is gasping and shivering beneath him, pawing at Castiel's shoulders and his back, holding him so close that he can barely touch Dean in return. He can feel Dean's frantic heartbeat against his own chest, Dean's voice is wrecked when he says, “There's – in the nightstand.” Castiel draws back from where he'd been mouthing at Dean's jaw, inhaling his scent. Dean is looking up him, his expression a blend of want and fear.

Castiel nods and stumbles to his feet, down the hallway and into Dean's room. He has barely set foot in here over the last century, only sometimes to get Dean some fresh clothes to wear. The envelope is long since gone from Dean's bed. Castiel never turns the light on when he enters here. When he comes back, the package of lube clutched in one hand, Dean hasn't moved from the spot where Castiel left him. Castiel can see the fast rise and fall of his chest all the way from where he's standing. He walks over and sinks down between Dean's legs again. Dean still isn't making a move to undress himself, and it's what makes Castiel uncertainly search his eyes.

Dean smiles at him, faintly but affectionate. He takes Castiel's hand and draws it up to his chest, rests it over the buttons of his shirt, “Trust me, you'll wanna do this yourself.” Castiel's hands are shaking while they slowly peel the clothes away from Dean's skin. Dean watches him with an expression like he finds it endearing, runs his hands along Castiel's arms like he's trying to calm him. Castiel can feel the minute tremble of Dean's fingers when he sneaks his hands under Castiel's shirt and caresses his sides. He doesn't wait to see if Dean is able to undress him in return, just hurriedly does so himself, and then presses down, moans against Dean's neck.

Dean is warm and breathing unsteadily, and he's making a noise like a whine in the back of his throat. But he's still soft between his legs, and Castiel draws back, about to ask if he's doing this wrong, if Dean is sure he even wants this. But Dean is wrapping his fingers around Castiel's hand, his voice breathless and urgent, “Cas, you know I'm not doing this 'cause you're the only one here right? Cas, you know it's you, right?” Castiel nods, unable to even form a word in his mind. Dean swallows, then guides Castiel's hand further down. He sighs and lays his head back against the blankets, “Please, Cas.”

Castiel goes slow, doesn't pull his fingers out again until the need becomes too much to bear. Dean is still soft but he's trembling all over, moaning around Castiel's name and twisting his fingers into the blankets. Castiel runs his sticky hands up Dean's bowed thighs, watches the unsteady rise and fall of Dean's ribcage, the glaze over his eyes. He is so beautiful, Castiel chokes around a sob. Dean laces their hands together above his head, and Cas presses his forehead against Dean's chest and pushes inside. He groans, the pleasure so intense he feels like he might die from it, and Dean digs his fingers into Castiel's skin, releases a shuddering breath.

Castiel starts moving, drawing a hiss and a moan from Dean. He gets lost in it, in Dean's warmth, in the way Dean's breath hitches and he grips Castiel's hands tighter every time he pushes back in. He is close when he becomes aware that Dean is sobbing. He stills, even though it's almost painful to do so, “Dean? What's wrong?” Dean blinks tears out of his eyes, they run down his cheeks and disappear into the blanket. “Nothing, Cas. Please don't stop.” His voice is too small and he closes his eyes again, but Castiel can not deny him. He presses his cheek against Dean's and pushes back in, and when he comes inside of him Dean arches his back and moans along with him.

They keep lying like that for a long time, Castiel pressing Dean into the blankets with his weight, running a hand up and down his sides that won't stop shaking. Dean has stopped crying but he still sounds brittle when he says, “Cas, please don't be hurt if. The next time, I might not remember how to – ” Castiel shushes him, and Dean quietens. He has his face buried in Dean's neck and just holds him, listens while Dean's breathing grows increasingly strained and pretends not to know what it means. Dean has been running a hand over Castiel's back but now it's not moving anymore. “Cas, it's time.”

>

He pushes away from the hidden door with a snarl, walks determined through the hallway and up the stairs. Welcomes the dark he's met with outside. The starless night. He takes flight the moment his feet touch the ground, and he flies along the coast, and above the deep dark sea. He flies to the mountains rising above a nameless desert, and to a tiny chapel that's been forgotten since more than five thousand years. Longer, even, than the last time he was here. It's white-washed and plain, surrounded by ruins and high and mighty trees. Inside, the rushing of the wind is silenced, dried out leaves cover the stone floor and the broken pews.

The colors have long since vanished from the single window. The glass is stained now from just time, and the light that pours inside is a river of green. He turns his eyes from it in anger. He walks right over the leaves and the stones, and the warding and spells he left here the last time. With his blood, he paints ten sigils on the wall under the window. When he's finished, a stone loosens from the wall and falls to the ground, breaking apart on the impact, whirling dust up into the air. He barely even notices, just takes what he has come for and then leaves without once looking back.

It's the fifth hour when he returns to the bunker. He leaves the door open wide behind himself when he strides in, and the first sunlight of the day falls in through the door and down the stairs. He walks through the hallway, the First Blade in one hand, and his angel blade in the other. He opens the hidden door to the dungeon wide, and leaves it open. He tears through the wards and the magic, and the candles flicker, the fire roars. Shadows press against the walls, he hears a nigh note all around, like the very air is breaking. The creature is snarling, straining against the chains with blood running from its scratched skin. He kneels down in front of it, touches the hand that holds the angel blade against the dirty tear stains on the creatures cheek. “I know, Dean”, and its teeth are grinding, snapping at his flesh, black eyes burning into him, “I know what happens in the end.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> my track: loreena mckennitt - beneath a phrygian sky


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